“To his kind of judge, Cruz ironically wouldn’t be eligible, because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and ’90s required that someone actually be born on US soil to be a “natural born” citizen. Even having two US parents wouldn’t suffice. And having just an American mother, as Cruz did, would have been insufficient at a time that made patrilineal descent decisive.”…Laurence H. Tribe, Harvard Law Professor

“Moore said he’s seen no convincing evidence that Obama is a “natural born citizen” and a lot of evidence that suggests he is not.”…Judge Roy Moore interview by WND

“We are being lied to on a scale unimaginable by George Orwell.”…Citizen Wells

Just in from Mr. H. Brooke Paige, plaintiff in the complaint against the State of Vermont, Secretary of State James Condos and Attorney General William Sorrell.

“Superior Court Judge Timothy Tomasi granted Plaintiff’s motion to file an amended complaint. The State filed an opposition brief limited to the issue of the Motion for a TRO, they have yet to Answer the Verified Complaint and have
been given until January 26 to answer or be found in default. Plaintiff
filed his amended brief naming Cruz and Rubio as indispensable parties
since their Petitions and Consent Forms were confirmed by the Secretary of
State. ”

“Wednesday the Judge scheduled a hearing on the TRO for Friday the 15th. On Friday the Plaintiff filed his Response to Defendant’s Opposition Brief and the Hearing was attended by Plaintiff and State Defendants who had summoned the Director of Elections to testify. Substantive evidence was provided by the Plaintiff and confirmed under oath by the Director of Elections under cross-examination revealing numerous defects and errors in the process and procedures including counting signatures of many individuals who were not registered. In dozens of instances were not even residents (or inhabitants) of Vermont including the citizens of CT, NY, NJ, MA and even FL who because the
Petitions were not labeled as for the Vermont Primary did not required the
signatories to certify that they were in fact registered Vermont voters.
Incredibly the Director of Elections testified that his office did not
believe they were required to confirm that the petition signatories were
on the voters rolls in Vermont, rather that they were only required to
determine that the signatures were legible and nothing more. Welcome to
Vermont’s Wild West of Elections where few care about the integrity of the
election process, in fact most probably do not even understand the
concept. In the end the Judge did not grant the TRO citing that the
public interest and concerns over voter disenfranchisement outweighed the
injury to the Plaintiff. Plaintiff will receive the Return of Service and
the executed Summonses on Tuesday for the new Defendants and will file
them with the Court that day, starting the 20 day clock for the new
Defendants to answer or otherwise file a response with the Court.”

Mr. Paige hired Baker Investigations and Process Servers to serve
the Summons and Amended Complaint on the out-of-state Defendants Cruz and
Rubio during their visit to Charleston SC in advance of their appearances
on the Fox Business News Republican Debate. Owner Elizabeth Baker
personally served both Cruz and Rubio on Wednesday January 13, as they
arrived in Charleston.

Photos courtesy of Baker Investigations and Process Servers.

According to Mr. Paige, Elizabeth Baker described the Rubio campaign folks as very accommodating and congenial while the Cruz folks were willing to
cooperate although they seemed less cordial and Boston lawyers contacted
the Plaintiff attempting to substitute “electronic service” for personal
service required by the Court.

Ted Cruz Harvard law professor Cruz not eligible, Born in Canada, Not natural born citizen, Laurence H. Tribe also Obama professor, I cannot support Ted Cruz and disregard for US Constitution, Many experts coming forward

“Donald Trump is actually right about something: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.”…constitutional law professor Mary Brigid McManamon

“Moore said he’s seen no convincing evidence that Obama is a “natural born citizen” and a lot of evidence that suggests he is not.”…Judge Roy Moore interview by WND

“We are being lied to on a scale unimaginable by George Orwell.”…Citizen Wells

I have liked Ted Cruz’s positions on many matters for years.

It does not matter to me how conservative he is, how popular he is and how much he protests that he is eligible.

I cannot support Ted Cruz and his untested arrogant position on his natural born citizen status.

I am certain that others agree with me.

He only makes Donald Trump look better.

And that is Trump, who questioned Obama’s eligibility.

Ted Cruz’s own Harvard Law Professor, Laurence H. Tribe, is questioning his eligibility.

From the Boston Globe January 11, 2016.

By Laurence H. Tribe

“There’s more than meets the eye in the ongoing dustup over whether Ted Cruz is eligible to serve as president, which under the Constitution comes down to whether he’s a “natural born citizen” despite his 1970 Canadian birth. Senator Cruz contends his eligibility is “settled” by naturalization laws Congress enacted long ago. But those laws didn’t address, much less resolve, the matter of presidential eligibility, and no Supreme Court decision in the past two centuries has ever done so. In truth, the constitutional definition of a “natural born citizen” is completely unsettled, as the most careful scholarship on the question has concluded. Needless to say, Cruz would never take Donald Trump’s advice to ask a court whether the Cruz definition is correct, because that would in effect confess doubt where Cruz claims there is certainty.

People are entitled to their own opinions about what the definition ought to be. But the kind of judge Cruz says he admires and would appoint to the Supreme Court is an “originalist,” one who claims to be bound by the narrowly historical meaning of the Constitution’s terms at the time of their adoption. To his kind of judge, Cruz ironically wouldn’t be eligible, because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and ’90s required that someone actually be born on US soil to be a “natural born” citizen. Even having two US parents wouldn’t suffice. And having just an American mother, as Cruz did, would have been insufficient at a time that made patrilineal descent decisive.”

From Mary Brigid McManamon, constitutional law professor, January 12, 2016.

“Donald Trump is actually right about something: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.

The Constitution provides that “No person except a natural born Citizen . . . shall be eligible to the Office of President.” The concept of “natural born” comes from common law, and it is that law the Supreme Court has said we must turn to for the concept’s definition. On this subject, common law is clear and unambiguous. The 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone, the preeminent authority on it, declared natural-born citizens are “such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England,” while aliens are “such as are born out of it.” The key to this division is the assumption of allegiance to one’s country of birth. The Americans who drafted the Constitution adopted this principle for the United States. James Madison, known as the “father of the Constitution,” stated, “It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. . . . [And] place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States.”

Cruz is, of course, a U.S. citizen. As he was born in Canada, he is not natural-born. His mother, however, is an American, and Congress has provided by statute for the naturalization of children born abroad to citizens. Because of the senator’s parentage, he did not have to follow the lengthy naturalization process that aliens without American parents must undergo. Instead, Cruz was naturalized at birth. This provision has not always been available. For example, there were several decades in the 19th century when children of Americans born abroad were not given automatic naturalization.”

According to the Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Constitution “contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two only: birth and naturalization.” Unless born in the United States, a person “can only become a citizen by being naturalized . . . by authority of congress, exercised either by declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens, as in the enactments conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens, or by enabling foreigners individually to become citizens . . . .” A person granted citizenship by birth outside the United States to citizen parents is naturalized at birth; he or she is both a citizen by birth and a naturalized citizen. This last point is discussed thoroughly in Jill A. Pryor’s 1988 note in the Yale Law Journal, The Natural-Born Citizen Clause and Presidential Eligibility: An Approach for Resolving Two Hundred Years of Uncertainty.

The Supreme Court holds that the citizenship statutes are exclusive; there is no residual common-law or natural-law citizenship. Citizens have no constitutional right to transmit their citizenship to children. In Rogers, the Supreme Court upheld a statute requiring children born overseas to citizen parents to reside in the United States to retain their citizenship. Since “Congress may withhold citizenship from persons” born overseas to citizen parents or “deny [them] citizenship outright,” it could impose the lesser burden of requiring U.S. residence to retain citizenship.

Congressional power to withhold citizenship from children of U.S. citizens is not hypothetical; for decades, it was law, and to some extent still is. The Tribe-Olson Opinion proposes that “[i]t goes without saying that the Framers did not intend to exclude a person from the office of the President simply because he or she was born to U.S. citizens serving in the U.S. military outside of the continental United States . . . .” However, the Seventh Congress, which included Framers Gouverneur Morris and Abraham Baldwin among others, did precisely that. In 1961 in Montana v. Kennedy, the Supreme Court construed an 1802 statute to mean that “[f]oreign-born children of persons who became American citizens between April 14, 1802 and 1854, were aliens . . . .” Thus, children of members of the armed forces serving overseas, and diplomats and civil servants in foreign posts, were not only not natural born citizens eligible to be president, they were not citizens at all.

Denial of automatic citizenship had very different implications than it would now because until the late nineteenth century, there was little federal immigration law. There were no general federal restrictions on who could enter the country, no provisions for deportation of residents who became undesirable, and immigration officials to deport them. Of course, these children could become citizens by individual naturalization. But even if the child suffered based on lack of citizenship, according to the 1907 Supreme Court decision in Zartarian v. Billings, “[a]s this subject is entirely within congressional control, the matter must rest there; it is only for the courts to apply the law as they find it.””

“Donald Trump is actually right about something: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.”…constitutional law professor Mary Brigid McManamon

“Moore said he’s seen no convincing evidence that Obama is a “natural born citizen” and a lot of evidence that suggests he is not.”…Judge Roy Moore interview by WND

“We are being lied to on a scale unimaginable by George Orwell.”…Citizen Wells

Enough is enough!

Ted Cruz, what the hell is wrong with you!

Donald Trump is right.

Cruz will continue to be challenged on his eligibilty for the presidency as a natural born citizen and rightfully so.

We already have a narcissist in the White House. We don’t need another one.

Cruz, do your damn job and get an advisory opinion from the FEC or a court ruling. That is if you care about this country. or is that the problem?

You were born Canadian.

Here is an update from H. Brooke Paige, plaintiff in the complaint against the State of Vermont, Secretary of State James Condos and Attorney General William Sorrell.

“Mr. Paige informs Citizen Wells that he will be filing his “Notice of Default” with the court on Monday morning and will subsequently ask the court for an expedited hearing on the merits, a directed verdict based upon the Plaintiff’s Complaint and the issuance of an Order by the Court directing Secretary of State Jim Condos to take appropriate actions to mitigate and resolve the errors and deficiencies presented in his Complaint.

More information as this unexpected and encouraging turn of events develops.”

From Mr. Paige January 5, 2016.

“Just in from Mr. H. Brooke Paige, plaintiff in the complaint against the State of Vermont, Secretary of State James Condos and Attorney General William Sorrell.

“Well this was an unexpected turn of events. As a result of their
negligence in Answering or otherwise entering an appearance in Superior
Court, a series of events are unfolding that could result in profound
changes in the Vermont Primary this March. What those changes will be is
difficult to predict. There are structural and legal problems with Vermont
Election Laws (Title 17) which has been thrown together “piecemeal” over
the years and this case should focus attention on the shortcomings of the
current law.

Mr. Paige visited the Secretary of State’s Office today to hand deliver a
copy of the latest filings that requested a Temporary Restraining Order to
prevent the “publication and distribution” of the Presidential Primary
Ballots until the “troubles” complained in the Plaintiff’s pleadings are
resolved or an accommodation can be found that would avoid injuring or
disenfranchising the various candidates.

Sadly, the Attorney General’s office has failed to inform the Secretary of
State’s Election Office of their failure to respond in Superior Court. The
Director of Elections appeared “shell shocked” as Mr. Paige filled him in
on the case, the default and the resolution he intends to propose to the
Court relating to the Primary. The General Election and the “natural-born
Citizen” question will require additional consideration in order to find
an equable resolution which hopefully will include defining “nbC”
precisely as part of the ruling (rather than mere dicta unrelated to the
resolution).

Mr. Paige informs that the gross negligence of the Defendants exhibited by
their failure to respond reduces the A/G opportunities to stall and
“sidetrack” the case. The expedited resolution of the questions relating
to the Primary could produce an interesting civics lesson for Vermont
voters.

CitizenWells will continue to follow this case and provide all the
details here as they become available !””

“Donald J. Trump predicted that the lawsuits against Senator Ted Cruz, doubting his constitutional eligibility to be president, would start trickling in as questions continued to percolate about the fact that he was born in Canada. As the Republican candidates gathered to debate in South Carolina on Thursday, one had already been filed.

An 85-year-old trial lawyer, Newton Schwartz Sr., filed the complaint in Federal Court in the Southern District of Texas, in Houston, arguing that the definition of a “natural born citizen” has never been sufficiently settled by the United States Supreme Court. The matter, he said, must be urgently addressed.

“The entire nation cannot afford such constitutional confusion and uncertainties overhanging the electorate process,” Mr. Schwartz, who lives and practices law in Mr. Cruz’s home state of Texas, wrote in the 73-page lawsuit.”

Read more:

From the Marshall Report January 7 2016.

“Cruz, Rubio Presidential Eligibility Challenged In FL, VT, and MD!”

“Well, so far complaints involving the ineligibility for Cruz, Rubio and Jindal to run for president have been filed in three states. Florida, Vermont, and MD. It appears all these people have to do is show proof of the eligibility requirements to run for president as stated in the constitution. So far none have, however Jindal has dropped out so it is moot for him. (Citizenship is not the same as the naturalization requirements for citizenship to run for President as stated in the constitution.)

For some odd reason, Cruz has had his birth records sealed. He’ll have to answer the reason why himself. Heaven forbid if we speculate on that one. It does appear very strange especially if he has nothing to hide? He did show his Canadian Birth Certificate and his paper denouncing his Canadian citizenship, but he has not shown any consulate papers.”

From the Washington Post January 12, 2016.
“Ted Cruz is not eligible to be president”

“Mary Brigid McManamon is a constitutional law professor at Widener University’s Delaware Law School.
Donald Trump is actually right about something: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is not a natural-born citizen and therefore is not eligible to be president or vice president of the United States.

The Constitution provides that “No person except a natural born Citizen . . . shall be eligible to the Office of President.” The concept of “natural born” comes from common law, and it is that law the Supreme Court has said we must turn to for the concept’s definition. On this subject, common law is clear and unambiguous. The 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone, the preeminent authority on it, declared natural-born citizens are “such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England,” while aliens are “such as are born out of it.” The key to this division is the assumption of allegiance to one’s country of birth. The Americans who drafted the Constitution adopted this principle for the United States. James Madison, known as the “father of the Constitution,” stated, “It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. . . . [And] place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States.”

Cruz is, of course, a U.S. citizen. As he was born in Canada, he is not natural-born. His mother, however, is an American, and Congress has provided by statute for the naturalization of children born abroad to citizens. Because of the senator’s parentage, he did not have to follow the lengthy naturalization process that aliens without American parents must undergo. Instead, Cruz was naturalized at birth. This provision has not always been available. For example, there were several decades in the 19th century when children of Americans born abroad were not given automatic naturalization.”

“Let me be clear: I am not a so-called birther. I am a legal historian. President Obama is without question eligible for the office he serves. The distinction between the president and Cruz is simple: The president was born within the United States, and the senator was born outside of it. That is a distinction with a difference.”

“I watched her on countless occasions blatantly lie to the American people and knowingly lie.”…Linda Tripp

“By July 1993, the Clintons and their associates had established
a pattern of concealment with respect to the Clintons’ involvement
with Whitewater and the Madison S&L. Because of the complexity
of the allegations of misdeeds involving these institutions, documents
and files are critical to any inquiries into the matter. Yet,
at every important turn, crucial files and documents ‘‘disappeared’’
or were withheld from scrutiny whenever questions were raised.…Senate Whitewater report June 13, 1996

“We are being lied to on a scale unimaginable by George Orwell.”…Citizen Wells

From Fox News January 11, 2016.

“FBI’s Clinton probe expands to public corruption track

The FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email as secretary of state has expanded to look at whether the possible “intersection” of Clinton Foundation work and State Department business may have violated public corruption laws, three intelligence sources not authorized to speak on the record told Fox News.

This new investigative track is in addition to the focus on classified material found on Clinton’s personal server.

“The agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed,” one source said.

The development follows press reports over the past year about the potential overlap of State Department and Clinton Foundation work, and questions over whether donors benefited from their contacts inside the administration.

The Clinton Foundation is a public charity, known as a 501(c)(3). It had grants and contributions in excess of $144 million in 2013, the most current available data.

Inside the FBI, pressure is growing to pursue the case.

One intelligence source told Fox News that FBI agents would be “screaming” if a prosecution is not pursued because “many previous public corruption cases have been made and successfully prosecuted with much less evidence than what is emerging in this investigation.” ”

“Fox News is told that about 100 special agents assigned to the investigations also were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, with as many as 50 additional agents on “temporary duty assignment,” or TDY. The request to sign a new NDA could reflect that agents are handling the highly classified material in the emails, or serve as a reminder not to leak about the case, or both. ”

US economy is dead in the water, NY Times media BLS and White House employment lies, Robust hiring?, White american employment decimated under Obama, Citizen Wells and Zero Hedge report job facts, Times receives 4 Orwells

“In December 2014 there were 18 million immigrants (legal and illegal) living in the country who had arrived since January 2000. But job growth over this period was just 9.3 million — half of new immigration.”…Center for Immigration Studies February 2015

“There’s no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.”…Gallup CEO Jim Clifton

“We are being lied to on a scale unimaginable by George Orwell.”…Citizen Wells

Citizen Wells and Zero Hedge have been warning you for many months about the real economy and employment situation in the US.

The mainstream media has reported about the widespread hunger and low paying jobs but they never connect the dots to the real employment data that is actually provided by the US Labor Dept. BLS.

The economy has only been propped up by the Fed and false perception of the job market.

The smoke from the smoke and mirrors is rapidly dissipating, the financial markets are collapsing and little by little reality based reports are surfacing.

From David Stockman’s Contra Corner January 6, 2016.

“Newsflash From The December ‘Jobs’ Report—–The US Economy Is Dead In The Water'”

“Here’s a newsflash that CNBC didn’t mention. According to the BLS, the US economy generated a miniscule 11,000 jobs in the month of December.

Yet notwithstanding the fact that almost nobody works outdoors any more, the BLS fiction writers added 281,000 to their headline number to cover the “seasonal adjustment.” This is done on the apparent truism that December is generally colder than November and that workers get holiday vacations.

Of course, this December was much warmer, not colder, than average. And that’s not the only deviation from normal seasonal trends.

The Christmas selling season this year, for example, was absolutely not comparable to the ghosts of Christmas past. Bricks and mortar retail is in turmoil and in secular decline due to Amazon and its e-commerce ilk, and this trend is accelerating by the year.

So too, energy and export based sectors have been thrown for a loop in the last few months by a surging dollar and collapsing commodity prices. Likewise, construction activity has been so weak in this cycle—-and for the good reason that both commercial and residential stock is vastly overbuilt owing to two decades of cheap credit—–that its not remotely comparable to historic patterns.

Never mind. The BLS always adds the same big dollop of jobs to the December establishment survey come hell or high water. In fact, the seasonal adjustment has averaged 320,000 for the last 12 years!

For crying out loud, folks, every December is different—–and not just because of the vagaries of the weather. Capitalism is about incessant change and reallocation of economic activity and resources. And now the globalized ebbs and flows of economic activity have only accentuated the rate and intensity of these adjustments.

Yet the statistical wizards at the BLS think they can approximate a seasonal adjustment factor for December that at +/- 300k amounts to just 0.2% of the currently reported 144.2 million establishment survey jobs, and an even smaller fraction of the potential adult work force which is at least 165 million.

But that’s a pretentious stab in the dark. The December seasonal adjustment (SA) could just as easily be 0.3% of the job base or 0.1%, depending upon the specific point in the business cycle and structural trends roiling the economy.”

“The real news flash in the December “jobs” report, therefore, is that even by the lights of the BLS’ rickety, archaic and virtually worthless establishment survey, the domestic economy is dead in the water. We are not on the verge of “escape velocity”, as our foolish monetary politburo keeps insisting; the US economy is actually knocking on the door of recession.”

“Even as increasingly more parts of the economy, especially those with exposure to manufacturing and industrial production, sink into the recessionary quicksand, one sector that was seen as immune from the malaise gripping US manufacturing and was outperforming the overall growth rate of the US economy, was housing, and specifically spending on private and public construction: a direct input into the GDP model.

That all changed today when the US Census released its latest, November, construction spending data, which not only missed expectations of a 0.6% increase, but tumbled -0.4%, the most since June of 2014, while all the recent changes were mysteriously revised lower.

And then the source of the mystery was revealed: in the fine print of the release, the government made a rare admission: all the construction spending data for the past 10 years had been “erroneous.”

In the November 2015 press release, monthly and annual estimates for private residential, total private, total residential and total construction spending for January 2005 through October 2015 have been revised to correct a processing error in the tabulation of data on private residential improvement spending. An Excel file containg all of the revisions can be found here”

“The last time the American economy registered such a prolonged stretch of impressive job creation, Facebook didn’t exist and Beyoncé was still a member of Destiny’s Child.

For all of 2015, the nation added 2.65 million jobs, capping a two-year, back-to-back gain that was the best since the late 1990s, the government reported on Friday.

“I think this really is illustrative of the fact that economic momentum in the United States is still awfully strong,” said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust. “In spite of the craziness we’ve seen from Asian markets this week, the fundamentals here at home are still solid.”

The year ended with a particularly strong sprint. In December, employers hired an additional 292,000 people, the Labor Department said, and October and November were revised up by a total of 50,000, pushing the average for the last three months to 284,000.”

“In December 2014 there were 18 million immigrants (legal and illegal) living in the country who had arrived since January 2000. But job growth over this period was just 9.3 million — half of new immigration.”…Center for Immigration Studies February 2015

“There’s no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.”…Gallup CEO Jim Clifton

“We are being lied to on a scale unimaginable by George Orwell.”…Citizen Wells

The financial markets are jubilant as they typically are with the Orwellian job reports from the US Labor Department.

All of the mythical jobs being created.

Such as the alleged 292,000 jobs created in December 2015.

If that many jobs were created in December or any other month in 2015 or any month under Obama, how come the following is true?

There were 139,000 more whites unemployed in December.

From January to December 2015, there were only 276,000 more whites employed.

Of course, Hispanics gained 71,000 employments in December.

Can the folks on Wall Street not read?

Or are they just brainwashed by the Orwellian media and White House?

From Citizen Wells September 4, 2015.

“*** Update 8:55 AM ***

“Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 173,000 in August, and the
unemployment rate edged down to 5.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.”

There was an increase in 23,000 white American employment in August.However, white employment is down 132,000 since January!!!

***

*** Update 9:10 AM ***

Almost 1.5 million more white Americans dropped out of labor force since Jan.

White employment to population ratio down .3 percent since Jan.

White labor force participation rate down .6 percent since Jan.

***

Regardless of the unemployment rate and jobs data provided by the US Labor Department this morning, September 4, 2015, the real employment situation can also be found in their data.

White employment.

Hispanic employment.

I found this article by Business Insider from February 10, 2011.

“No One Looking At This Chart Could Possibly Call It A Recovery”

“Currently the problem in the US jobs market mainly lies with, what I call, the maintenance rate. This is the minimum monthly job creation rate that our enormous system–our economy and government with its revenues and liabilities–must have in order to maintain itself as population grows. Getting lost in the weeds, therefore, of monthly unemployment rates is a waste of time. After having lost 8+ million jobs from the top of the last expansion, nitpicking one’s way through the additions, revisions, and changes to the presumed size of the work force misses the point. And that’s this: any month in which the US does not create at least 125,000 jobs, from a systemic point of view, is negative. It’s less than zero.”

“Now you know why annual government budgets have blown out into the the trillions: the economic flows normally provided by a functioning economy are now provided through unemployment checks, food stamps, FDR style spending and other distributions. In short, the “economy” cannot be experiencing a recovery when, after 10 years of population growth and growth in future liabilities, the number of people employed is hovering around levels last seen in 2002-2004. Whether you chose to look at just Non-Farm Employment, or Total Employment, the US Labor Market is essentially flat-lining since a deep trough was reached in late 2009, early 2010.

Those who would make sweeping claims about a recovery in the entire economy should place these two charts shown here in their printed columns, along with the fact that the US population has grown by over 25 million people since the year 2000.”

The referenced study from above was retrieved from the WayBack Machine.

Why was it scrubbed?

From the Brookings Institute February 4, 2011.

“The traditional unemployment rate does not fully capture the extent of labor underutilization in our economy. In addition to the 14 million Americans who are officially counted as unemployed (the jobless who are still actively looking for work), there are over 11 million Americans who either want to work but have given up looking, or who are underemployed in the sense that they are working part time because full-time work is unavailable. These additional workers are less visible but are undoubtedly victims of the recent recession.”

“The Hamilton Project explores the monthly “job gap” based on the employment numbers—or the number of jobs the economy needs in order to return to return to pre-recession employment levels while absorbing the 125,000 people who enter the labor force each month.

The annual revision to the historical payroll numbers released with the January report paint an even starker picture for the job gap this month, increasing it to 12.4 million jobs.

The chart below shows the evolution of the job gap since the start of the Great Recession in December 2007. The thick line in the chart below shows the net number of jobs lost since the Great Recession began.

The broken lines display the date by which the jobs gap would be closed under alternative assumptions about the rate of job creation going forward. If the economy adds about 208,000 jobs per month, the average monthly rate for the best year of job creation in the 2000s, then it will take until July 2023 to close the job gap. At a more optimistic rate of 321,000 jobs per month, the average monthly rate for the best year of the 1990s, the economy will reach pre-recession employment levels by May 2016. ”

“With all eyes glued to Friday’s payrolls report, we thought it worth reiterating some ‘facts’ about US employment data. As ECRI notes, the sustained decline in the official jobless rate – now approaching the Fed’s estimate of “full employment” – is a misleading indicator of labor market slack. The data shows that the so-called jobs recovery has been spearheaded by cheap labor, with job gains going disproportionately to the least educated — and lowest-paid — workers.

Indeed, the stagnation in nominal wage growth is consistent with the weakness in the employment/population (E/P) ratio. That said, even the E/P ratio may be overstating the health of the jobs market.

After dropping to three-decade lows in the wake of the Great Recession, the E/P ratio, has barely improved since the fall of 2013, reversing only about one-fifth of its decline from its pre-recession highs.””

“Moore said he’s seen no convincing evidence that Obama is a “natural born citizen” and a lot of evidence that suggests he is not.”…Judge Roy Moore interview by WND

“no Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President . . . .”…US Constitution

“We are being lied to on a scale unimaginable by George Orwell.”…Citizen Wells

I am a big fan of Rush Limbaugh and have been for well over 20 years.

I do not always get to listen to him but I caught a few minutes yesterday when he was discussing the controversy over Ted Cruz’s eligibility.

He used citizen and natural born citizen interchangeably.

Even John McCain has this right. Cruz’s eligibility is subject to scrutiny.

To Limbaugh’s credit, he did go on to read the eligibility provision from the US Constitution and state the difficiencies of the candidates and opposing thoughts on what NBC means.

I found the following offensive. It reminds me too much of John Boehner and the mainstream media:

“I’m not saying that won’t happen, but they’re not gonna succeed in going into court and have Ted Cruz told by a court, “Hey, Mr. Cruz, we’ve just discovered you’re not a citizen. Leave the country! Turn in your passport and go back to Canada.” It isn’t gonna happen. ”

Citizenship is not the term or the question. Hell, we’ll let anybody be a citizen.

It’s natural born citizen!

From Rush Limbaugh January 7, 2016.

“Cruz Citizenship Kerfuffle Is a Distraction”

“Well, we’re getting closer to the day that actual votes are going to happen, which is why all of this kerfuffle is effervescing up and boiling over. I mean, the nonsense on whether or not Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen. It’s stunning.”

“The latest to join this bandwagon suggesting that Ted Cruz may want to actually go to court and get some confirmation on the fact he’s a citizen, it could be a problem out there, John McCain. John McCain is now officially questioning Ted Cruz’s eligibility to run for the presidency. It’s getting into bizarro territory here. Remember, now, McCain was born in Panama, and his presidential eligibility is the same and based on the same constitutionality as is Ted Cruz’s. It’s amazing.

Folks, I left the program yesterday, and this was the subject we were laughing about, the way Trump was talking about it and raising the issue but not opining on it. And because the Republican establishment is scared to death of either one of them winning, the gears got into full motion and people started investigating this constitutionally, intellectually. You would not believe, one website probably has 75,000 words written on this. And the 75,000 words include the learned opinions of countless other scholars on whether or not Ted Cruz is actually an American citizen.”

“Anyway, the eligibility question is an interesting political development because it is gonna be explored, it is gonna be a distraction. The Democrats are gonna milk it for all it’s worth because of what happened to Obama and the birthers. And despite the fact that there’s no similarity or commonality in the two claims, they’re still gonna rely on the low-information voters’ ignorance of this and act like, “Hey, this is fun. You know, you guys did it to Obama, we got a chance to do it to you,” so that’s why they’re gonna get in on it.”

“But it’s an opportunity for a lot of people to show their chops, demo their chops on the Constitution. I mean, here’s what this really is all about. It’s right out of the Constitution. It is very, very simple. It’s Article 2, Section 1. “No person except a natural born citizen…” I’m telling you, I went to a blog site, and there’s a 75,000-word article on “natural born citizen,” what it means. I thought, “You know what? I could print that out, I could read that whole piece, and it’d be my program today. I could take the day off; just read that piece. At the end of that you’d think I’m nuts or brilliant.”

But 75,000 words! That’s a wild guess. But it printed out to 20 pages. “No person except a natural born citizen or a citizen of it United States, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of president; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of 35 years, and been 14 years a resident within the United States.” There’s nothing else. You can have an IQ of 20. You can be dumb, stupid. You can be poor, you can be uneducated. None of that matters. You just have to be a natural born citizen, gotta be 35 years old, and you have to have lived within the United States for 14 years.

That’s it. So when people raise the question, “‘Natural born citizen’? What’s that mean?” ‘Cause it doesn’t appear anywhere else in the Constitution. It’s not defined. The founders do not define what natural born citizen is, which means that back in the day they wrote it… It’s why original intent’s so important, folks, when you analyze the Constitution. “What did they mean? What did ‘natural born citizen’ mean at the time they wrote it?” It’s a derivative from British common law which meant natural born subject. And, I’m telling you, this… Andy McCarthy writes about this today, and he’s right.”

“It is not explained in the writings or the history of those who framed the Constitution, nor is it in a demonstrable common and clear understanding in the former British colonies at the time, and the Supreme Court has never ruled on it and probably never will. “Natural born” is not used anywhere in the Constitution. Its origins are unclear. It is assumed to be derived, as I say, from the British common stature law governing natural born subjects. And therein provides the wide opening for everybody to mad dash into and define it themselves as to their particular benefit.

There are essentially two ends of the spectrum here about which everybody agrees, in terms of the meaning of “natural born citizen.” 1. A person born in the United States to parents, both whom are United States citizens. Obviously, you’re natural born. You’re born here. Your parents are citizens. Bammo, you’re a citizen. Nobody questions it, and you’re natural born. By the way, if you Planned Parenthood aficionados are listening, it has nothing to do with artificial wombs and all that. That’s not what “natural born” means. We can rule that out right now. We’re not talking about test tubes here.

Although we might somewhere down the road. You never know. And the other end of the spectrum is a person born outside the United States to parents, neither of who is a United States citizen, is not a natural born citizen. Nobody disagrees with that. Even if citizenship is obtained through naturalization later, that is not natural born citizen. So if you’re a naturalized citizen — born somewhere else, your parents are not Americans — and if you come here and become a citizen? “Sorry, you’re not qualified. Too bad.”

Now, Rubio, Jindal, and Cruz, as did Obama, fall between these two points on the spectrum here. Rubio and Jindal born in the US to parents neither of whom was a citizen at the time that he was born here. So, bammo. Ted Cruz was born in Canada to parents, one of whom (his mother) was a US citizen, and as far as the best minds have worked on this, that alone qualifies Cruz. Now, Trump months ago… We had the audio sound bite yesterday. Months ago, Trump said of Cruz, “Ah, it’s not about that.”

Trump says, “Cruz is perfectly fine. It’s not a problem here. I looked into it; we have no problem with Cruz.” Now, yesterday Cruz becomes the focus point of Trump. “Weeeeell, I don’t know. I might be a little nervous. He might want to get clarification.” That’s all it took to get the media revved up and create this distraction now that is designed to distract Cruz, raise doubts, weaken support, all of these things. It’s ’cause Cruz is the front-runner now in the Hawkeye Cauci.”